Grado Silver P Mount w/shure adapter VTF
- Thread starter Ant1-Hero
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ETI_5000
Super Member
You have balanced the tonearm before setting the tracking weight, haven’t you? Your questions lead me to suspect you might not know about that. The tracking weight is set by the stylus in question, and for Grado Silver cartridges, they should all be at 1.5g, no matter how much weight the headshell, adaptor or anything else is.
It doesn’t matter what weight the cartridge and adaptor is, as long as the tonearm can be balanced for that weight. The weight of the adaptor should have no effect, because you balance the arm initially with it in place before you set the tracking weight. That is, move the tonearm off its rest, and rotate the tonearm weight back towards 0 grams, until the tonearm is free floating in balance horizontally with the adaptor and cartridge in place, and the anti-skating set to zero. Then leave the weight where it is, and rotate the tracking weight dial on the weight until it reads zero, with the weight stationary. The tonearm should still be balanced. Now rotate the tracking weight (and anti-skating) to 1.5g, which is what Grado’s P-mounts need to be set for.
Theoretically P-mount cartridges should all track at 1.25g, the Technics standard. However, there were several cartridge manufacturers that didn’t meet that standard – Ortofon and Grado specifically used existing styli that needed different tracking weights that didn’t meet the defined standard. All they did was put existing cartridges in P-mount bodies, even though they didn’t correspond to the correct standard for tracking weight. As a result, on P-mount tonearms that are factory set for the P-mount standard of 1.25g, and which can’t be changed, their cartridges won’t work at their correct tracking weight, as they require a heavier tracking weight to track corectly. On ½ inch mount tonearms it shouldn’t matter, as they can usually be set for a range of different tracking weights and cartridge weights.
It doesn’t matter what weight the cartridge and adaptor is, as long as the tonearm can be balanced for that weight. The weight of the adaptor should have no effect, because you balance the arm initially with it in place before you set the tracking weight. That is, move the tonearm off its rest, and rotate the tonearm weight back towards 0 grams, until the tonearm is free floating in balance horizontally with the adaptor and cartridge in place, and the anti-skating set to zero. Then leave the weight where it is, and rotate the tracking weight dial on the weight until it reads zero, with the weight stationary. The tonearm should still be balanced. Now rotate the tracking weight (and anti-skating) to 1.5g, which is what Grado’s P-mounts need to be set for.
Theoretically P-mount cartridges should all track at 1.25g, the Technics standard. However, there were several cartridge manufacturers that didn’t meet that standard – Ortofon and Grado specifically used existing styli that needed different tracking weights that didn’t meet the defined standard. All they did was put existing cartridges in P-mount bodies, even though they didn’t correspond to the correct standard for tracking weight. As a result, on P-mount tonearms that are factory set for the P-mount standard of 1.25g, and which can’t be changed, their cartridges won’t work at their correct tracking weight, as they require a heavier tracking weight to track corectly. On ½ inch mount tonearms it shouldn’t matter, as they can usually be set for a range of different tracking weights and cartridge weights.
It bears repeating - P-mount just means the cartridge connector is the same - everything else may change...
T4P is the full blown standard which guarantees it will work as a plug and play exchange (no need to worry about balance, vtf or anything else...)
thats the theory anyway!
T4P is the full blown standard which guarantees it will work as a plug and play exchange (no need to worry about balance, vtf or anything else...)
thats the theory anyway!
